Tuesday, January 06, 2015

10 Easy Ways to Save Your Money and Improve Your Health in 2015

Who wouldn't want to both save money and improve their health? If you're looking for some ways to do so, here are some quick thoughts:
  1. Unless you have a medically proven reason or need, stop buying vitamins and supplements that at best provide only the most marginal of benefits to your health (estimated savings $100-$1,000/yr).
  2. Reduce your dinners out (including sit down, fast food, take-out, and supermarket take-out) by 50% across the board (estimated savings $1,000-$5,000/yr depending on family size and meal out frequency).
  3. Never eat lunch out unless someone else is buying or unless you have a business obligation to do so (estimated savings $500-$3,000/yr).
  4. Cancel cable or satellite TV, buy an HDTV antenna (so you can still watch your local sports, news and some TV), and use Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime or some other comparable service (estimated savings even after expenditures $250-$1,000/yr).
  5. Buy a thermos or a travel mug and a great coffee maker and kick your fancy coffee habit (estimated savings even post purchases $100-$500/yr)
Now of course there will be readers who spend more and less on various aspects of those points, but if there are readers where all 5 apply, making these changes might save them between $1,950 and $10,500 dollars.

As far as what to do with that windfall?
  1. Join a CSA farm share to increase your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables (estimated average annual cost $400-$1,000 depending on size of share)
  2. Join a great local community centre or gym (estimated annual cost of $200-$600)
  3. Buy some used recreational fitness equipment (bikes, skis, snowshoes, etc.) from your local buy and sell (estimated one time cost of $200-$400)
  4. Take a cooking class at your local Community College (estimated cost of $100-$300)
  5. Save it all and use it for a stress relieving active vacation, or stress relieving debt relief.
(And sure, some of your own personal numbers and mileages will vary.)